And I don’t mean delivery (or take out, or frozen), I mean homemade deliciousness. 

Friday nights I let the girls eat dinner in front of the tv. Sometimes we watch something together (usually Dr. Who on BBC America or something on HGTV) and sometimes they retreat to separate screens and are all watching different stuff. But they all come running when I yell, “Pizza’s ready!!!

I do this every Friday night. The dough recipe is out of Jim Lahey’s My Bread. It is a no-knead recipe which keeps this easy-peasy. The recipe is at the end of this post. I mix up the dough at about 3-3:30ish and it is risen and ready to go by dinnertime (I think you could mix it in the morning and leave it in the fridge all day as well). I double the recipe to get 3 pizzas (plain, pepperoni, sausage), and I do find that the original recipe is a little on the skimpy side to get the 2 pizzas it claims it makes.

Once the dough has risen (this takes about 2 hours) it gets divided into 3 balls and sits on a floured counter under a damp towel for a ½ hour. In the meantime I preheat the oven to 500ºF and I make my pizza sauce: 1 carton of Pomi (I use Pomi because it is the only tomato sauce that contains just tomatoes, most other brands have spices and salt added) tomato sauce simmered for about 10 minutes with some olive oil, garlic cloves, red pepper flakes, about 1 tbs. sugar, and a pinch of salt. I also slice up fresh mozzarella, pepperoni, and a take 2 sweet Italian sausages out of their casings and pinch off bite size pieces.

Then comes the pizza assembly. I use my hands to oil 3 sheet pans (about 3 tbs. olive oil for each pan), next I take a dough ball an stretch it across the length of the pan. Then I let the dough relax for a few minutes before starting to flatten/stretch it to fit the pan. It is important to let the dough relax a few times during this process. If you try to force the dough to stretch too quickly it will tear.

Now the toppings! I like to put down the cheese first, next the pepperoni or sausage, and the sauce goes on last. And into the oven they go! I find it is best for only one pizza to be in an oven at a time (even on convection) for optimal cooking and crispness. They take 10 minutes (at the most) to cook.

We all look forward to Friday night. It has become a much loved family ritual.

Basic No-knead Pizza Dough (from My Bread, by Jim Lahey) this is enough for 2 13 x 18 inch pies.

3 ¾ cups bread flour

2 ½ tsp. instant yeast

¾ tsp. table salt

¾ tsp. plus a pinch sugar

1 1/3 cups room temperature water

olive oil for the sheet pans

In a medium bowl, stir together flour, yeast, salt and sugar. Add the water and using a wooden spoon or your hand, mix until blended. The dough will be fairly stiff. Cover and let sit at room temperature until doubled in volume, about 2 hour.

Remove the dough to a floured counter and divide into 2 balls, cover with a damp towel and let sit 30 minutes

Oil 2 13 x 18 inch rimmed baking sheets. Stretch dough ball the length of the baking sheet. Using your palms, pull, press, and stretch the dough to fill the bottom of the pan.

Add your toppings and bake in 500°F oven for about 10 minutes.